- American director Spike Lee has been named to be the next president of the Cannes Film Festival jury (May 12-23), becoming the first black man to hold this prestigious position.
- Spike Lee is a staunch defender of minorities and women, as illustrated by his speeches and interviews.
- 20 Minutes has made a selection of some very political punchlines.
For once, he was sober, you could say: in a declaration made public just after his appointment as president of the jury for the next edition of the Cannes festival, the director Spike Lee, the first black man to hold this position, s said "honored to be the first person in the African diaspora (United States) to chair the Cannes Jury and a major festival", while the day before, critics were raining down on overly white nominations at the Oscars. A rather sober and classic declaration, on the whole, if not ... the signature: "Peace and Love, Spike Lee, People's Republic of Brooklyn, New York", named after the district of the American megacity where the filmmaker grew up, and to which he addressed a hymn in five short films.
It is in this signature that we must look for the Spike Lee tone: political and willingly irreverent. In his films and in his speeches, the director did not stop pleading the black cause and sending messages. Here is a necessarily subjective selection of some punchlines.
2019: “Let's get mobilized, let's be on the right side of history”
It was last February, and it had been years since Spike Lee awaited him: his very first Oscar statuette, in the category of best adaptation, for BlacKkKlansman . A story from Ron Stallworth's novel Black Klansman , in which he tells how, a black policeman, he infiltrated a cell of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1970s. When his Oscar is announced, Spike Lee jumps into his arms from actor Samuel L. Jackson and gives a vibrant tribute to his ancestors: “Tonight, I salute our ancestors who built this country and who experienced the genocide. If we connect with our ancestors, we will gain love, wisdom and rediscover our humanity. It will be a great moment. A speech he ended in the shape of a snub to one of his enemies: the President of the United States, Donald Trump. “Let us mobilize, let us be on the right side of history. Choose love over hate. Let's make the right choice! "
Spike Lee calls on America to mobilize for the 2020 election: "Make the moral choice between love versus hate. Let's do the right thing!" https://t.co/WFxDborr1n #oscars pic.twitter.com/TntC0f3kYm
- Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 25, 2019
2016: "Easier for a black man to be president of the United States than at the head of a studio"
The scene takes place a little before the Oscars, when the nominations have just been announced. Many voices are raised to denounce #OscarsSoWhite, “too white” Oscars. Among these voices, that of Spike Lee, who decides to boycott the ceremony: "Me I will not go, my wife will not go either, but everyone can do what he wants. I will go see the New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden that evening. ” Before letting go: "It is easier for a black man to be president of the United States than at the head of a studio"
"Spike Lee is controversial, he doesn't have his tongue in his pocket. But he knows what he is talking about, he is well documented. It is good that there is a president of the jury who comes out of the white Euro-centered standard, he will have a more pronounced interest in minorities and women, ”comments Régis Dubois, specialist in African American cinema.
2013: "The only way to release a film as an independent filmmaker is to put your hand in your pocket"
In 2013, Spike Lee made his crossing of the desert. He knew a whole period when he was "no longer popular", explains Régis Dubois, author of the book Spike Lee, a controversial filmmaker. To finance his next film, he is launching a Kickstarter campaign. And took the opportunity to throw a scud in Hollywood: "The only way to release a film as an independent filmmaker is to put your hand in your pocket. "
2008: "It would be great if the White House could become the" Black House ""
This time we are a few months before the election of Barack Obama, whose candidacy represents immense hope for millions of African Americans. Spike Lee presents Miracle to Santa-Anna at the Deauville Festival, a fresco on the role of African-American soldiers during the Second World War. Interviewed by our colleague Caroline Vié from 20 Minutes , who asked him if "a filmmaker should be hired", Spike Lee did not shy away:
“I am not a lesson giver. Each one makes his heart and his convictions. For my part, I fully support Obama. Financially and verbally. It would be great if the White House could become the "Black House". I keep my fingers crossed that it will happen in November. "
Spike Lee is a tireless defender of the cause of blacks, and the color is announced in the very name of his production house: 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, in French 40 acres and a mule, named after the promise of repair that had been voted for freed slaves and was almost never implemented (except for a few hundred slaves). "Spike Lee's style is a lot of black humor and requests ... it's a cinema of repair," comments Louis-George Tin, president of the Representative Council of Black Associations in France (CRAN). "
By naming Spike Lee, the Cannes Film Festival therefore wants to show that it cares about inclusiveness. “What is surprising is that he himself criticized the lack of diversity in the selection of the festival. The choice to designate it is a way both to assimilate the challenges but also to respond to them, ”comments researcher Célia Sauvage, doctor of cinematographic studies and specialist in cinema in the United States. Who adds: “Before Spike Lee, Isabelle Adjani, whose father is Algerian, was the first president of African descendants. She is however far from being a representative of the militant cause like Spike Lee ”. "But the tree should not hide the forest, a nuance of Louis-George Tin: just as Barack Obama did not end racism, Spike Lee at Cannes is not the end of racism. "
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